The past hours have brought deeply alarming news of military strikes by the United States and Israel against targets inside Iran, followed by retaliatory missile attacks by Iran across the region. The speed with which this escalation has unfolded is frightening. The human consequences, as always, are borne not by political leaders but by ordinary people going about their daily lives.
I want to state plainly at the outset that I regard these attacks as a grave and dangerous error. Pre-emptive military action of this kind, undertaken without a clear and lawful mandate and with no realistic diplomatic endgame, risks igniting a wider regional war whose consequences will be catastrophic.
Failure of political leadership
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have chosen the path of force. They present this as strength. It is not strength. It is a profound failure of political judgment.
Military action against Iran will not bring stability to the Middle East. It will not advance democracy. It will not make Israelis, Americans, or anyone else safer. It risks doing the precise opposite by entrenching hardliners, fuelling regional proxy conflict, and placing civilians in immediate danger.
We have seen this pattern before. Bombs do not build institutions. Missiles do not nurture civil society. War does not deliver freedom.
No illusions about the Iranian regime
None of this should be read as the slightest endorsement of the Iranian regime. The government of the Islamic Republic has a long and deeply troubling record.
The repression of protestors, the imprisonment of dissidents, the brutal treatment of women and girls, the persecution of minorities, and the crushing of basic political freedoms are matters of public record. The courage of ordinary Iranians who have taken to the streets in recent years, often at immense personal risk, has been one of the most inspiring democratic movements of our time.
They deserve solidarity. They deserve support. They deserve the space to shape their own future.
What they do not deserve is to have their country bombed in their name.
External military attack strengthens the very forces inside Iran that oppose reform. It allows the regime to wrap itself in the language of national defence and to portray domestic dissent as treachery. Those who suffer first and most are the same civilians who have already endured decades of repression.
Civilians are not strategic assets
We must also be unequivocal in our concern for those now under Iranian missile fire across the region. No civilian population should live under the threat of rockets and air strikes. The targeting of population centres is indefensible, whoever carries it out.
Every Israeli family in a shelter, every Iranian family fearing the next explosion, every community across the Middle East caught in the trajectory of escalation is a reminder that modern warfare is waged against human beings, not abstract geopolitical entities.
International humanitarian law is not optional. The protection of civilians is not a slogan. It is a legal and moral obligation.
The Rule of Law matters
If the international system means anything, it must mean that the use of force is constrained by law. The prohibition on aggressive war is one of the foundational principles of the post-1945 order. Once that principle is eroded, we move into a world where might makes right and where every state claims a unilateral licence to strike perceived enemies.
That is not a world in which small states are safe. It is not a world in which human rights flourish. It is not a world in which conflicts are contained.
Those of us who believe in the rule of law cannot be selective about it.
Solidarity with people, not Governments
My solidarity is with ordinary people:
- With the young women and men in Iran who have marched for freedom and been beaten for doing so.
- With Israeli civilians now facing missile attack.
- With communities and visitors across the region who fear that tonight’s escalation will become tomorrow’s war.
- With all those who simply want to live in peace, raise their families, and go about their lives without the sound of sirens.
They are the ones who pay the price for the failures of political leadership.
A call for immediate de-escalation
What is needed now is urgent de-escalation:
- A cessation of hostilities.
- Restraint on all sides.
- The re-opening of diplomatic channels.
- A renewed commitment by the international community to lawful, negotiated solutions rather than military adventurism.
This is not naïve. It is the only path that has ever produced durable peace.
Prayer for Peace
In this moment of danger, I pray for the safety of all who are in harm’s way. I pray for wisdom among those who hold power. I pray for courage among those who speak for peace. I pray for a rapid end to the violence and for a future in which the peoples of the Middle East can live in security, freedom, and mutual respect.
War is not liberation. Bombs are not democracy. Peace, justice, and the rule of law remain the only foundations on which a stable and humane international order can be built.
Photo credit: Jack Guez/AFP
C. E. Lord OBE 